Saturday, October 31, 2009

Graham, Anna and Emily jumped in leaf piles on Halloween Morning. Rain was in the forecast, brought in by a warm wind. It felt a lot like Mary Poppins weather to me.

I think Jim and I enjoyed the leaf pile as much as the kids. I mean really, how often to you get to jump into a pile of crackly (dry) leaves and just laugh?

Here's some action footage:

From the inside of the leaf pile, I shot some video of the clouds passing overhead. Which morphed into one of our favorite pretend games-- Ice Cream Shop. The smile on this kid melts my heart every time.

We continued our annual pumpkin carving tradition with the Harters. I tried to convince the girls they'll need to come home for this fun even when they're in college. Emily was a pushover, but Anna told me she'd have to think about it :).

Graham's level of involvement certainly increased from years past. It's hard to believe he was such a little lump just last year and now he's right in the middle of it all. I threatened the carvers that we're going to stick him to a chair with duct tape, or switch to butter knives next year.

It took a few tries to get a pic of all the kids. I was still only partially successful.

One of the more memorable events of the evening was filming Anna's debut in her self-directed movie. Enjoy:

Monday, October 26, 2009

He now spends 2 mornings a week at school. Graham can identify about 20 letters in the alphabet and amazes us daily with his new words, new physical feats, and most of all his sense of humor. His favorite games include hiding and yelling, Surprise! This little kid cracks us up.

He enjoys riding bike with Daddy and playing make believe games, like serving us pretend ice cream. Every night before sleeping we snuggle and read books. Two year olds are lots of fun.

It seems the end of October slipped away from us. We'll catch up the blog eventually...

Saturday October 24th, we trekked to Norwich to celebrate Graham's 2nd birthday with all his pals (and lots of extended family, too). We decided a late morning get together would be much more in tune with our nap schedule than mid afternoon. (And I hope no one was too upset about all the pre-lunch sugar.) We hadn't been to Kids' Kingdom since before he was walking, so this trip was a whole new adventure.

Last year's sock monkey theme was so much fun we decided we'd do a self-designed theme again this year and settled on robots. (Fingers crossed we'll get to pick at least one more year before Graham demands Transformers or some other over-commercialized nonsense!)

Jim created a cool papier mache balloon holder (above) and I silk screened robot t-shirts for all the kids.

I also made a robot birthday cake complete with mini donut appendages and a lollipop antenna held together with (a pound and a half of) butter cream frosting.

Graham barely stopped long enough to blow out his candles before he was back on the run.

As if the Robot Extravaganza wasn't enough excitement for one day, we came home for a special visit with Gramma Strolin! After a little down time, the Tourtellottes joined us for a special birthday dinner at Pizzaland.

Here Graham shows he doesn't harbor any hard feelings that Aunt Abby and Uncle Jason doused him with water:

And it just wasn't possible to get a pic with him and Amanda without a finger being stuck you know where...

Back home, we all indulged in some delicious Grandma Grace's chocolate cake.

Uncle Ethan and Graham had lots of fun making music into the wee hours. If it looks like Graham is about to fall over in the video, it's because even the chocolate frosting wasn't enough to help him catch his third wind :).

Monday, October 19, 2009

It's official! Graham is two. While the big party isn't until next week, we had a nice afternoon on Sunday opening presents with Grandma and Paul. The ukulele was a big hit.

After a special ham and mac and cheese dinner, we broke out the candles. I was going to skip cake in favor of ice cream (his favorite), but Grandma thought otherwise and made homemade pumpkin spice cupcakes with chocolate chips. They were heavenly.

Our funny little guy couldn't get past all the singing. We performed no less than 8 encores. Much different from last year, when the Happy Birthday song drove him to tears! This is a super long one, but adorable. Keep a look out for the cross-eyed, "Oh No!"

Sunday, October 18, 2009

We continued the "Big Breakfast on your Birthday" tradition at one of our local ice creameries. "The Pie in the Sky" not only had a delicious all you can eat pancake breakfast (with sausage!), they also opened the cooler to give the Birthday boy a scoop of their home made vanilla on the side!

Add some playdate friends, a few board games, and a little extra sausage, and you have an excellent way to start your big day.

After sharing some leftovers with Scout who was waiting patiently in the car, we played in the pumpkin patch awhile before heading home to rest up for the rest of the day.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

On our recent road trip to PA, we made a quick pit stop to stretch our legs and ruin our diets.

Graham enjoyed the hats more than the actual donuts, but as for me, the experience has unfortunately triggered a long repressed sugar lust, and I've been struggling to adhere to my strict dietary regimen ever since. Curse you Krispy Kreme and all your deliciousness!

The bones of the giant dinosaurs were impressive, and they had several interactive play stations that succeeded in keeping the boys attention for awhile.

The coral reef display was built into the floor, and it was really funny to see Graham brave the walk across it. In fact he had to hold my hand to do so, and if I let go he'd run to the "shallow" side of the glass along the wall to cross over.

Snack time was the only chance I could get to get a shot of everyone together. I have truly not done the blogging of this visit justice and apologize for the lack of photographic content, but with all the chaos of 3 kids running amok I was lucky to get the few shots I did.

Phil makes it look so easy.

And what, you may ask, was Graham's favorite item in the museum? The dinosaurs? The amazing variety of stuffed beasts? The giant bronze statue of a 6 foot dung beetle rolling his dung? Noooo.... It was this-

After many trips back to the drawing board, "Gumdrop" (so named for the shape of his head) is finally finished and ready to taunt the neighborhood. Of all the displays I've done since we moved here, this one has gone through more design changes than any of them. In fact, the only part of the entire display that remains true to the original idea is the can that has been beautifully painted by Melissa, who also gets credit for selecting and carving the head. (Thanks Love!)Here's a short video of it in action. Sorry if the camera's a bit shaky. I had to move around a bit while recording to trigger the motion detector.

I've also set up the twins from last year's Terror Totter on the porch to help set the mood.

Just like last year's display, this year's has been set up just in time for what may be the first snowfall of the season. I'm hoping the can will provide at least a little protection, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see!